I feel Leo’s hand tighten on my knee from the realization that the man he has always hated actually helped save his mother from the clutches of a mad man. “They fell in love before you were one, but never married. Gia wouldn’t tie herself to anyone after the way Luigi had treated her.”
“But Angelo?” Leo asks, making Sofia look at Vincent in a heartbroken way.
“When I went looking for clues, I was caught red handed.” Sofia admits sadly. “I left no clue for Vincent to know where I was, and Luigi does not take easily to being ‘sold out.’ He raped me, repeatedly. Held me against my will and swore he’d kill Vincent if I didn’t refuse him, promise to be with him instead. He held a gun to my head and demanded I call off our, Vincent and I’s, soon to be marriage. He wanted me to father him a child he lost.”
Vincent shoots out of his seat and walks to the corner across the room. With his back to us, I see him take a deep breath and almost feel the tension, the hatred, leaving his body before his fist comes up and punches the wall in front of him. I jump and feel Leo’s arm raise as he drapes it around my shoulders and pulls me in closer against him. I look back at Sofia. At my mother. And my heart breaks for her.
“But what about me?” I ask shyly, not knowing if this is the time to press the matter, but I have to know. How did I fit into all of this? How, after Angelo, did my mother and Vincent manage to have me?
“After a few years, Luigi got distracted,” Sofia continues. “He spent his nights with other women and his days running the family business and trying to take over everything. When he was gone, and when I knew he wouldn’t return, I found peace, love, happiness once again with Vincent. No matter how many times I lied to him and told him there was nothing between us, your father, he wouldn’t believe me. He kept close eyes on me and came to me when he finally knew it was safe.”
“True love, even when you are young, waits. Is patient. I would have waited for your mother forever, Maria. My only regret is that I didn’t press her, see through her lies, and take her away from him sooner than I did. That I didn’t find her, know where she ran off to, and killed Luigi Lombardi when I had the fucking chance.”
“When Luigi found out about Vincent and I,” Sofia says as she stands and makes her way over to my father, “Angelo was two years old. I kept it a secret for as long as possible, but soon there was no mistaking the child that grew inside me, and the undeniable fact that it wasn’t Luigis. The last time that I had been with him was almost a year before, and I wouldn’t have lied, even if I could.”
“Your mother was taken to Sicily,” Vincent said. “Luigi’s consigliere, having known the truth and held it for fear of him harming Sofia or the unborn child, you Maria, was taken there with her.”
“Once I was cast away, Luigi threatened Gia. He feared that Angelo wasn’t his own, having found out my infidelity, and forced her to return to Rome. That is how you came home Leonardo. Before Maria was kidnapped.”
“But who kidnapped her, and why?” I hear Leo yell as he bolts to his feet.
“Luigi’s plan was to rule with his sons, and he didn’t want anyone getting in the way. Including a half-child, a girl, who could claim just as much power if she wanted to given her family name. De Luca.”
I stare across the room, into space and quickly try and piece everything together. “Big Jim convinced Luigi to let him take her out of the equation. Him and his wife had never had a child, and they were desperate. He promised to take her away to America. Keep her hidden, at a cost. One Luigi happily paid.”
My eyes find my mothers and I can’t help but shed the tears that have been building the whole time we have been sitting here. “Why didn’t you come for me?” I whisper, needing her to answer, needing to know why I was forced to live in hell with no way to escape, no way back to my family.
“If I had, Luigi promised to kill you,” my mother says tearfully. “There, you were safe. Safer than I could have kept you. The Nitti family is strong, but not as strong as the Lombardis. Not until recently at least, Maria. When Luigi found out about the notebook that Jim had with him, blackmail he wasn’t expecting for more money, he had his wife killed and Big Jim brought back to Rome. The notebook though, was missing.”
I remember the night my “so called” mother died and know what my real mother is about to say before she even has to. “You were supposed to die that night, Maria. But you were saved, because the man Luigi sent, the new soldier he trusted to kill you both, works for Vincent. Sparing no mercy on the woman who took you from us, he left the notebook, hopefully you’d take the clue and come back to Rome. The only thing none of us counted on, was Leonardo finding you first.”
**********
Leo
My body feels poisoned from hearing I am to blame. The reality that before I fully knew who Maria was, I was going to kill her. Before I laid eyes on her in the hotel bar, I swore an oath to turn her over to Luigi, dead or alive. Something I know I will never let myself live down, not as long as I fucking live.
Luigi killed my mother, to silence her, that I am sure of. He also intends to murder Maria, the woman I have loved my whole life. I’m realizing my alleged father has a fucking nasty habit of taking away the people in my life that are most important. And that ends now.
“What do you need me to do?” I whisper with my head hung low. I can feel Maria tense at my side.
“Leo, no,” she begins as she sits up straight and attempts to make me look at her. But I can’t. If I do, I will fail to keep the hatred burning inside. The darkness. The only thing that will make it possible to do what I have to do. Take out Luigi Lombardi and take back what is rightfully mine.
My name. My family. My honor.
“We have a man on the inside,” Sofia says as she fills a glass at the bar. “Someone Luigi has grown to respect and would never believe would turn his back on him.”
“If you do this,” Nitti says in a low stern voice. “There can be no turning back. There can be no doubt. You are all in.”
I nod my head in understanding and rise. Picking up my glass on the nearby table, I raise it towards Nitti and pause, choosing my next words wisely.
“I made a promise to a girl a long time ago,” I insist. “I don’t break my promises, Nitti. That, I assure you, is the only oath that will ever matter most in my life. I gave it to your daughter when we were kids. I would stand in between her and anything that would ever even threaten to hurt her. Including you. I was ‘all in’ the moment I laid eyes on her.” I pause, realizing the heaviness of everything. My father. My oath to the family. Maria. Silent for a moment, my next words come out in a low, stern whisper. “And I’ll die doing what Ihave to do, that I can promise you all.”
Chapter 22
Maria
My eyes find his silhouette in the darkness later that night as I enter our room. He stands in the shadows, near the window and stares out deep in thought. My heart reaches out to him, wants to help him, console him, but I don’t know how.
